Mr Clarke is the principal of Northern Bay P-12 College in Geelong. On the Victorian government’s analysis, it would be the state’s worst-affected school if the Gonski education funding reforms are introduced.

On numbers presented to the state parliament last week, Northern Bay would be $6 million worse off over the first six years of the new system, starting next year.

Mr Clarke says the federal government’s analysis has his school’s annual budget jumping from $21 million to $41 million in 2014, before ramping up to $53 million over the next five years.

Needless to say, Mr Clarke would like to know just how much money he will have for the next year.

“We are running a large and complex school . . . we would really like to know what the real situation is in relation to our funding. It is just intriguing that we could be so poles apart," he told The Australian Financial Review.

Mr Clarke has written to state Education Minister
Martin Dixon
, asking him to explain his government’s workings and will be doing the same to federal Education Minister
Peter Garrett
.

He says he would like information soon as his school would ideally like to make decisions over staff hirings in the third school term, which begins in July.

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He also says he cannot understand why the Gonski model, which is supposed to increase funding based on the disadvantages faced by a school’s pupils, might penalise his school.

“That is the whole premise behind the Gonski funding model," he says.

On official statistics, Mr Clarke says his school’s catchment was the 18th most disadvantaged in the state and its Year 12 completion rate was just 17 per cent, compared to a statewide rate of 49 per cent.

Mr Clarke says he could turn extra cash, particularly if it came with certainty, into higher engagement and completion rates.

The current federal funding system, which involves a national partnership payment, is unreliable and the Gonski model would offer welcome certainty, he adds.